Hello there, brave new world.

I've been 25 for going on an hour and a half, so I think that the maturity that goes with having a less expensive car rental fee (to say nothing of car insurance) has probably sunk in by now.

So let's talk about my last day as a 24 year old.

Sorry, Jack. I can't help you anymore.

Most of it, I spent working on a powerpoint presentation for my tutoring group. PowerPoint? Surely it's not two words. Firefox isn't saying that the double caps version is misspelled, so I will defer on this issue. I did have a lovely-ish workout this morning. Some ladies (not the LADIES sort of ladies, but rather the older, wedding ringed, "I'm here because my husband can afford the gym membership and I need something to do" ladies, not that there's anything wrong with that) were in the way of the machines where I get my chest all swoll.

So swoll.

 And, of course, it continues to be far too cold for ALMOST APRIL. I MEAN COME ON. MOMMA CAMERON KNEW THAT SHE WANTED A SON WITH AN UNDAMAGED HEAD AND A BIRTHDAY THAT FELL IN WONDERFUL WEATHER. This is ridiculous, winter. You're drunk, and Charleston is not where you want to vacation. You're on your way to Chile or some such (where it's chilly. See what I did there? This right here is some classy and original comedy. You're probably laughing pretty hard right now. I'll wait.)

We're done waiting.

Anyway, yes. I spent most of it on a presentation for my tutoring group. They seemed to enjoy it. There was skull anatomy and nerves galore. Hopefully it helps them. But, really, that's not what I'm here for.

I also went to trivia, where we won shots. There were some questions I should have gotten, and there were some that we shouldn't have but did anyway (because we're cool like that). We even stayed a while (with Chantal, Sneezy, and Platinum Chainz) to ring in my birthday with more booze than was ideal and a few wonderful songs. People were looking at us weird. It's a bit of a hipster bar. They don't understand our joy. Assholes. Well, okay, it's a little awkward trying to sing along to a song in a group of four while you're standing off on your own in a little pack. DON'T HATE.

But anyway. Late is the hour and such. Here's what I REALLY wanted to talk about. If you've ever doubted how FREAKING AMAZING Charleston is, well, shame on you, because you're just wrong, but also, here's something to convince you otherwise.

I'm driving home, and I'm waiting at a red light. I see a young lady escorting a clearly intoxicated fellow home. This fellow has a tattoo along his right flank and axilla. How could I know such things, you may wonder. Well, this fellow also did not have a shirt and was stumbling quite a bit. I almost offered them a ride, but I remembered being rebuffed for a similar offer while in college, and I figured that I'd see how it went.

Sure enough, the young lady had things well in hand. She was-

Hold on. Important bulletin. Having read previous posts, you know how much I love Neil Gaiman and how much I would have his children if I had the proper reproductive machinery. Seeing as I don't, I'll have to pay it forward to him by posting a link to this poll. It's a Time Magazine poll for the Top 100 People of 2013. I think he should be on the Top 100 People of Ever, but that's just me. Give him some love here.

I will write slash-fiction between him and David Bowie if need be. AND IT WILL BE, well, just terrible, because I'm not great at fiction. We should know this from the last post of Novemblog, with the repeatedly capitalized N's to go for the Aristocrats joke.

Anyway, the young lady had things well in hand. She escorted him across a potentially busy intersection with no problem. And that's awesome. Truly, she is wonderful and a keeper, and he should do nothing to earn her ire (and probably shouldn't have had so much to drink).

However, he HAD had so much to drink, so the point was moot. The important thing is what happened right after they crossed the street.

He moved to the other side of the curb.

I like to think that they had just recently crossed from the other side of the street and that his balance wasn't yet up to snuff, so he let her walk closer to the street for a spell. But as soon as his equilibrium returned, you know what happened?

He moved to the other side of the curb.

And they say chivalry is dead.

The old hurdy gurdy

Yeah, yeah, I know. Late. Once again. I'd say that I know I owe you better, but that calls into question of whether or not an artist owes his/her audience, which in turn calls into question the idea of whether or not I'm anything resembling an artist and whether or not all threeve of you (a whole threeve!) constitutes an audience.

Dig it, you crazy cats.

But hey, Davidson is playing CofC, and I'm done studying for the night, regardless of whether or not I should be. Neither of these things are particularly connected, what with not having cable and having no desire to try to jinx things by turning on the game on my computer or some such.

And no, tonight isn't the night for a Mr. MUSC recap. It's unfortunate, but I doubt I have the time or inclination to take care of that business tonight. And a bloody business it is. (Is Rob being literal or not? The answer may surprise you!)

There's an obvious caption with this one. I'll leave you to find it. Scavenger hunt!

Also, bangarang, C of C.

Bangarang indeed.

Mmm carrot. Keeping me that wonderful shade of sallow yellow. Sun's overrated, especially when there's board studying to do (not that there's been much of that going around, times being what they are). But oh, the day will come. And when it does, I will play around on Facebook until I remember that, hey, I only have a few weeks left until I pull the trigger, and maybe I should figure out where I'm pointing the gun and maybe learn some proper gun safety so I don't shoot myself in the foot with it.

Yeah, a little overboard, but the metaphor stands. And yet I continue to not study. Truly, I am a giant among men.

See, now I just keep getting distracted by the bangarang face. It's... haunting. Of course, the TV doesn't help either. And now it's late enough that I'm having doubts that I'll be able to come up with a topic. But hey, maybe I've left you with some food for thought. And a bangarang face.

Fine, I just left you with a bangarang face.

In fact, I left you with two.

Dear Pharynges and Upper Respiratory System,

I've known you for a long time. When I had those early nightmares about the Honkers and various crustaceans, you were there for me.

Sweet Jesus, they're breeding.

When I had that kickass Cookie Monster Is A Train Conductor On A Chocolate Train Cake for my third birthday party, you were there.

I couldn't find photographic evidence of this pivotal moment in my life, so here's Liam Neeson giving you some encouragement.

Sure, we've had some bad times. I remember when I was... call it 4? and you decided that I was going to have that strange hybrid dream of a brontosaurus in Free Willy's tank and possibly the Winter Miser or the Burgermeister or someone from one of those weird Rankin Bass Christmas specials that I'm not sure I've even seen and wake up with the worst pain in my ears in my life. Also that rhythmic pounding. Oh, the pounding. I remember wandering around my room and shouting to the heavens, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHAT HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? THIS INFERNAL BEATING IN MINE EARS HATH MADE ME MAD!"

The face of madness, ladies and gentlemen. But mostly LADIES.

My point is, yes. There were ear infections. There were apparently enough that people were considering going for surgery because blah blah Eustachian tubes, things I should know but don't blah blah. And then you got the hint that you were yourself in danger (not really, because I just stopped complaining about the pain in my ears because I didn't want to be a bother. See also: broken collarbone, food poisoning 2007), you gave it a rest. Well, part of you did. I mean, I guess you figured that Strep throat would be a better idea? My ass thanks you for all the injections you subjected it to. THAT CAME OUT WRONG.

I think this sums things up well.

Seriously, all in all, we've gotten on pretty well. You've let me know when, hey, there's some sort of badness here. Heck, you've even been good enough to give me telltale signs for these sorts of things (including, as of high school, a sore throat for an ear infection. Because that makes sense.), and I've tried to listen. You didn't get in the way when I tried my hand at singing or acting, and for that, I thank you.

I know that you're going to get sick now and again. That's fine. These things happen. I've been trying to exercise to make that happen less often. Yeah, I hurt my chest, and that made things difficult, but it's pretty much healed now. I'm sorry for that.

But for fuck's sake, cut this shit out. Make up your goddamned mind. Is this a sore throat? A chest cold? A sinus infection? Pick one, you fucking dick sandwich.

Pictured: Resolve, motherfucker.

But do NOT keep this bullshit up with the goddamned, "Oh, today you're going to have an absurdly sore throat. Today you're going to constantly be coughing unless you drink gallons of water at every opportunity. Today your nostrils are going to feel like I jammed Everclear up inside them and am holding it in there." No. No. This is done. There will be no more of that. You are preventing me from doing fun things, and you are preventing me from working effectively. There will be no more of this.

However, there may continue to be me in this snazzy scarf, because if this medicine thing doesn't work out, I can always become a WWI fighter pilot.

Let's Catch Him With His Panzers Down

Well, dang

Yeah, I know. February is the month where New Year's resolutions go to die. My excuses are bad, and I should feel bad.

Don't worry, Dr. Zoidberg- I do.

"But, Rob," you may cry (and in this case, you do, because we're in my imagination now. In fact, I just saw an image perfect for that. Let's go find it, shall we?

The sad thing is that now I can only think of rate-limiting step or steady state approximations. Thanks, Doc.

And now back to the parenthetical in which we were discussing the delicate balance betwixt fiction and reality. And now back to the actual speaker we had a few lines ago.), "what could have kept you from this sacred duty of resolutioning?"

Well, if you must pry, most recently, it was due to a call of nature. I'm not proud of it, but nor will I allow myself to be shamed by the likes of you for having such functions. If you continue to deny me my right to poop when necessary, then we're gonna have trouble.

Good to see you again, Professor. As always, your timing is impeccable.

Of course, that really only accounts for 30 minutes of my whatever that word is that I'm looking for. I really can't come up with it. But anyway, let's do a run-down of what has kept me from keeping up with my one-a-week promise.

When last we left this intrepid blog, it was February 2nd, it was. Now it's March 1st. So, week by week (and maybe even day by day), let's do a quick recap.

The week of February 3rd-9th: Well, spirits were high going into the week. At some point, I may have received a nomination for the annual beauty pageant at my school. That was pretty cool. More on that later. More importantly, though, the 8th and the 9th (when a blog post would normally have reared its beautiful and magnificent head) was the start of study week. For those of you who don't know, this tends to make my life turn from the normal mix of insanity, absurdity, debauchery, and trivia into:

Well, okay, study week. Not the best excuse, but not bad, sir. Not bad.

February 10th-16th: Um, it's still study week. And test week. And dance practice for the pageant (LADIES). Friday was the test. After that, I think I went out for a couple of beers, and then there was dinner with the folks (Thanks again! It was great!) and a general feeling of "Why did I have a couple of beers in mid-afternoon? You know that this never ends well for you." (Note: This is not to say that I blacked out or anything of that sort. Day drinking that stops for some period of time tends to result in me getting a fierce headache and general ickiness.) I then joined my classmates at the bar du soir and was endlessly told how well I was going to do at the pageant. It was a wonderful display of solidarity undercut by the crippling pressure of what I had to live up to.

So much pressure to take good pictures.

And then Saturday I just had other things to do I guess.

February 17th-23rd: Well, I had to get ready for the pageant, of course. That meant practice, practice, practice, sleep, practice, and practice. I barely got things together in time. Then the pageant happened, and next thing I knew, I had the cast of Alien trying to bore its way out of my head. So that's where last week went.

This past week, well. There were problems.

Sunday: Psht. I know I should write something, but I should also go to trivia with some friends. That'd be fun. And it was! Aside from the announcer's idiocy (herp derp 10 million sales is the right answer instead of diamond status herp derp).

This image took way too many tries to find. This is also offensive to somebody, hopefully the host who can't host.

Monday- Well, I had to go to a seminar at 5, and I needed to work on finding sources for a paper due in a couple of weeks. Maybe I'd even study a lecture. Couldn't just let blogging get in the way of productivity.

Tuesday: I was actually going to go home and blog after trivia. I had a decent buzz going, and I was ready to write something. And then Vespa laid down the almighty "WHY AREN'T YOU HANGING OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS. YOU ARE SO LAME." guilt trip. Thanks, Vespa. I feel much better about drinking more now.

Wednesday: Oh, also, at some point after the pageant, I pulled a muscle in my chest. This, obviously, really fucking hurt. Rather than take the hint of, "Hey, dumbass, take it easy for a few days," I proceeded to work out on Sunday and Tuesday. Wednesday, I realized that maybe I should take it easy. Of course, on Tuesday night, a cold front rolled on through, so I woke up with a fierce cold that was not helped by the extreme pain associated with coughing and/or sneezing. So I felt pretty crappy, and I was probably still trying to do some work on this paper.

Thursday: Well, Thursday is trivia. I can't not go to trivia. Haven't you been paying attention.

Friday: I was going to finish the paper. I didn't.

AND THAT BRINGS US TO TODAY!

Finally. Geez. That was painful to write. I can't imagine what it was like to read. Some of that might be due to me not having had breakfast yet. Some of it might be due to me being out of practice due to missing four straight weeks of blogging. So here's what's going to happen.

I figure that I need to make up for four weeks of lollygagging. With this, maybe I've gotten through one. This means you get extra blog posts this week.

More importantly, it means that I've delivered my message in my usual roundabout way, and I can now make some fucking blueberry pancakes. I'm hungry. Lay off me.

I was going to include an image of blueberry pancakes here. Apparently, there are no especially appetizing pictures of blueberry pancakes on Google Images. I have no intention of changing that, because I'm going to eat the bajeezus out of these pancakes as soon as they take form, like some sort of post-modern Cronus. Hipster Cronus? (Aw, nothing for that on Google Images, either.)

This will have to do.

Hipster Hendricks smells blueberry pancakes. Bring it, Hipster Hendricks.